Willie Jackson points to lack of trickledown

The lack of trickledown of treaty settlements may become a part of a build-up to September’s election, according to comments by urban Maori advocate and former Alliance MP Willie Jackson, who has been given a high place on the Labour list.

Jackson said: “We have had treaty settlements and we are not seeing the benefits for people in the cities. We have people living in cars. I can take you to 100 Māori, 1000 Maori, in South Auckland who have not seen a bean".

Jackson said that the next big name to be drafted into play by the Maori Party will be Mark Solomon, the former chief of Ngai Tahu in the South Island, the tribe that has had multiple settlements and top-ups, and the instigator of the Iwi Leaders Group.

Continuing his attack, Jackson said: “I think the Maori Party is besotted by the iwi leaders and the tribal elite.”

Jackson’s focus on urban Maori, and Labour’s strategic decision to stand its current electorate MPs away from its list, appear to be a move against the power of the Iwi Leaders Forum and the Maori ‘king’.

Maori wants Maori to care for troubled Maori

Maori self-determination specialist Whatarangi Winiata this week strongly urged Social Development Minister Anne Tolley to let Maori look after their own at-risk children.

Dr Winiata, who instigated dividing the Anglican Church into Maori, non-Maori, and Pasifika sub groups, and who was president of the Maori Party, says the Oranga Tamariki Bill needs to re-written to ensure that Maori care for troubled Maori.

This academic is also critical that the bill is being scrutinised by the “Pakeha dominated social services committee”.

The problem with Dr Winiata’s approach is that children, who have become troubled by the failures of their parents, may be sent back to their grandparents, whose parenting failures created the parenting failures that resulted in those children being troubled in the first place.

Troubled children, irrespective of ethnicity, should be directed to homes, irrespective of ethnicity, that would be best for the wellbeing of those troubled children.

Sadly, Dr Winiata’s recommendation would appear to entrench the cycle of failure.

Hobson’s Pledge seeks solutions for all who are in need and vulnerable without selectively choosing one ethnicity over another.

Dr Winiata’s grandstanding is offensive to all those who marched in the streets in horror of yet another child viciously beaten.